Seabed Geosolutions wins two ocean bottom node deals

Seabed Geosolutions, a joint venture between Fugro and CGG, has been awarded two ocean bottom node (OBN) seismic acquisition contracts offshore Trinidad and Nigeria.

The company said on Tuesday that a 3D OBN project would cover the Greater Angostura field in shallow waters offshore Trinidad for BHP while the second, a 4D OBN project, was awarded by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company.

According to Seabed Geosolutions, the combined contract awards are valued at around $60 million.

The 225 km2 Trinidad project will start in the first quarter of 2018 and will use Seabed Geosolutions’ latest node handling solutions deployed by ROV. These subsea systems were developed in tandem with Fugro. The company added that BHP’s plans for development in the area require higher seismic quality, which can only be provided by OBN data.

Greater Angostura field lies in 36-46 m of water on the continental shelf, 37 km east of Trinidad and in the eastern Trinidadian sector of the Eastern Venezuela basin. The shallow-water integrated oil and gas field development is part of Trinidad Offshore Block 2c operated by BHP Billiton. The first discovery well, Angostura-1, was drilled in 1999.

Stephan Midenet, CEO of Seabed Geosolutions, said: “We are delighted to partner with BHP for their first ever OBN survey over an existing field offshore Trinidad. We are confident that our technology, coupled with our operational track record, will provide BHP with the data quality they need to meet their development goals.”

The 4D OBN monitor project in the Bonga Field offshore Nigeria will use Seabed Geosolutions’ Hugin Explorer vessel equipped with CASE Abyss nodes and will begin in the first quarter of 2018.

The Bonga field, which began producing oil and gas in 2005, was Nigeria’s first deep-water development in depths of more than 1,000 meters. The field is producing hydrocarbons using the Bonga floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which has the capacity to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas a day.